Category Archives: Pantry Challenge

Monday Menu Planning

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Snow days at our house means lots of extra food and fun!  We have been under a winter advisory for almost a week but Saturday started the official snow days. I have not been left home in three days and will hope to stay at home until Thursday when both E and I have a doctor’s appointment.  I am hopefully for several remote learning days. I did make a trip to the grocery store on Wednesday and ended up spending $82.20. This puts  my spending for January at $373.77 I am hopeful to stay under $400.  But I know in February we have a huge Costco trip that is needed.  The good news is that we are continuing to use what we have so the pantry challenge is working just not as well as I had hoped.  You will notice lots of extra food this week.

Breakfast- Saturday- Breakfast bowls.  Sunday- Sausage Crescent roll and Cream cheese crescent rolls.   Monday-Cinnamon rolls  Tuesday-Baked oatmeal , Thursday- muffins  Wednesday, Friday– find it (oatmeal, omelets, cereal and milk, sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs)

Lunch- Saturday- Sushi Bowls   Sunday-Beer Cheese Soup.   Left-overs are always great for lunches.  One of E favorite is grilled cheese sandwiches so I am sure there will be this for several days.

Dinner- Saturday- Chicken gnocchi soup and breadsticks. Sunday- Stuffed green peppers Monday-  Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and pears. Tuesday-Chicken parmesan  Wednesday- Broccoli Cheese soup  Thursday-Fish and Chips  Friday-  Left-overs or eat on the way to swim meet.

Seven Things Saturday

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  1. I had every intention to post a five things Friday yesterday but it just did not happen.  So I decided to change it up and post seven things today.  One of the reason that I was not able to post was that Kendall and I spent the entire afternoon at Catawba College where she was interviewed for a full ride scholarship. Although we will not know about the scholarship until March this visit helped to solidify her decision that she would like to attend Catawba next fall.
  2. We are preparing for a major ice storm and some really cold weather over the next couple of days. The current temperature is 25 at 5pm, feels like 14.The temperature is not expected to be above 40 until a week from Monday. We are predicted to reach between 1/4 and an inch of ice. The overall hope is that we do not lose electricity and get to stay nice and warm. Or the kids hope for all snow to play in.
  3. Because of the weather, our church has already cancelled activities for tomorrow. Both the school districts have sent home remote activities. If the weather remains close to the predictions, we all may be home for the next week together.
  4. We have done some things to prepare without going overboard. I took Mom to the grocery store on Wednesday night as we had a swim meet on Friday. We have created an access point at the front of the house which would allow us to run a generator to run space heaters for keeping at least part of the house warm. Chickens have been fed heavily with good bedding and water is full. We will keep a check on the water for the next couple of days.  All warm items and flashlights have been assembled. We have spent lots of time charging things.  Lots of things have talked about and planned. And we currently have load number 5 in the washer. My plan is to wash a sixth load tonight and wash probably 2 additional loads tomorrow. The worst thing that could happen is that we have all clothes clean.
  5. One of our garden beds broke with the bottom falling to the ground. Unfortunately, this was the bed that I planted garlic in. Matt and I braved the cold and moved 21 garlic bulbs. I hope this will mean we get some garlic in the summer but who knows.
  6. I did have a chance to go through my seeds.  I am actually not planning to buy any seeds this spring. I am going to buy some basil plants and some flowers but that should be it.   I will have to buy more dirt as we are adding a green stalk planter. The other big expense will be a watering system to go over the top and connect to the sprinkler.
  7. Food is always  a big deal, I made a huge breakfast bowl for lunch, Lily made sushi bowls for dinner and I have made breadsticks and Chicken gnocchi soup for dinner.

Saving on Saturday- Pantry Challenge

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I am proud to say that I have not been inside a grocery store for three weeks. I will admit that I did send Zach to grab some sour cream on Thursday.   My rule for the pantry challenge is that we only buy items we are totally out of.

Sour cream was the exception or maybe it actually qualified. We had two containers in the fridge.  Unfortunately both were moldy.   Zach spent $1.83 for the sour cream.

We actually ran out of rice on Thursday. I usually purchase large bags of rice at Costco in March but this year we used more than expected.  At Walmart today, I really debated if I wanted to grab a small bag and wait to get at Costco. However the price difference was over three cent an ounce, so I just could not justify. We ended up with a 20 lb bag which only filled one bucket about 3/4 the way. I will still plan to grab another bag from Costco when we go.  As we were walking through Walmart, I found split wings that we will use for Junk Food Sunday. They were reduced to $19.84 for 8 pounds so we purchased 16 pounds. We have opened and used most of a carton of shelf stable milk so I grabbed a gallon of milk as well.   We have been attempting to use up all the meat and chicken from our freezer.  I have used up all the shredded chicken, and all the canned chicken. I wanted to make Chicken stew tomorrow so I went ahead and purchased a whole chicken. I normally would not have purchased but I decided to go ahead because we were out.

Now for the splurge, I grabbled a bunch of bananas and a loaf of bread.  We experienced a MAJOR life change last weekend. I am going to hopefully post about it soon but these were things to make my life easier.  I ended up spending $51 at Walmart today. This means that I have spent $291.57 in total for the month.

Christmas Reflections

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This Christmas has definitely had a different feel.  Some things are positive and some are negative and some I just know but can’t give a name.

One of the things that has been on my mind is the fact that my “littles” are not going to be at home for many more Christmas celebration. I wanted to soak in every minute and just enjoy this season of life. We started by visiting Disney at the beginning of December. It was awesome and many core memories were made.  I really enjoyed hanging out with the kids with less distractions!  Christmas Day was really laid back for us as all three kids had a cold/virus.

We lost a member of our church to a tragic accident the Saturday before Christmas, this was very unexpected and hard for everyone. I can not even begin to imagine the grief felt by his wife and three kids.

We had to replace our HVAC system, the Friday before Christmas which has some financial implications.  One of which is that we have been eating at home for the past two Sundays.  This has saved us money but we have enjoyed spending time with friends during home meals.

I am excited about the new storage areas that we have and I can’t wait to pack up Christmas in a more organized manner and get things back together in the house.

We are definitely preparing for our pantry challenge. I was able to get an additional casserole in the freezer on Friday. I also canned 5 quarts and 17 pints of turkey broth.  I also got one extra meal of soup in the freezer as well.  We need to finish up a ton of left-overs this week as well.

There is a very personal situation going on that  has “stolen my joy”.

Christmas 2025 was different.

Pantry Challenge Preparation

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I am trying to spend part of my winter break working on Pantry preparation.  I had already been thinking about participating in a pantry challenge but with the new heating and air system it is a definite we need to now.  First I have been working on a list of all of the different meals we could have based on items in our freezers and pantry. My goal is to have a list of sixty items. I am planning to share this list once I get it organized and typed up. Here are some of the other ways I am working to get prepared to make this pantry challenge successful for both the months of January and February.

So far in the last week I have made a batch of sloppy joes (8 meals), two extra meals of meatloaf muffins, two extra meals of bagels and one extra loaf of bread.

I have been searching the pantry to try and restock on any items that we might run short on during the next several months.  I ended up at Costco last night to pick up items for our dinner party on Saturday as well as the items we needed. I ended up spending $306 which puts me over the grocery budget for this month however I will let you know next week what our budgets actually look like for next year.

The “rules” I have set for myself

  1. Eating out as a family  only on Sundays – We have a specific budget for this.  I will also try and stretch this budget to cover meals on the go which will be needed for a couple of swim meets.  Matt and I will continue to have our “spending money” which is going to be reduced from $50 to $40 every two weeks for at least the first six months of 2026.
  2. Purchase only diary items such as milk, cheese and creamer.  I am planning to make bread during the challenge so this should not be needed. We have fruits and vegetables in cans, jars and frozen which need to get used up during this challenge.
  3. No purchasing of meat! With the exception of chicken wings needed for our Super Bowl party.
  4. Use at least 5 jars a week from the home canned pantry.
  5. Keep a list of items we run out of and when This is new this year but should help me figure out what I need in our pantry for the future.
  6. Lower the Amazon subscribe and save order to bear minimum of 5 items needed to keep the 15% discount or items we are absolutely out of.

Anyone else participating?

Pantry Challenge/ Saving Money

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Yes I am writing this on a Sunday. I did most of the work for this on Saturday. But I wanted to share about the building that feels like it is sucking up most if not all of our time.

I work all summer long to get easy to prepare meals in the freezer to make the school year go easier. I also wanted to start using up alot of the food we have here so that I can reduce the food bill for the rest of the year.  I have  not been to Costco since the first of August before school started.  I am picking up items that we are completely out of but I am making a conscience effort not to buy items unless absolutely needed.  We are about 6 weeks in and at the point where our convivence foods are gone. Yesterday we finished up both the chicken nuggets and bagel bites. One of the items that I have the most of is ground beef. When we purchase a whole cow, we get alot of ground beef and I know we can eat it. I am thinking that at this point we have almost 50 # left in the freezer.   We used up the last of the Costco meatball about a week ago.

On Friday, I took a pound of ground beef and decided to make some meatballs to go with our spaghetti.  They turned awesome, so good in fact that I decided to go ahead and make a huge batch. I turned 5 pounds of ground beef into 96 meatballs that can be used for spaghetti, meatball subs and even Swedish meatballs.

While the last batch of these were baking yesterday, I ended up gathering up all the ingredients for Taco Soup. I decided to make a double batch so that I could can up some for quick and easy lunches.  We are eating the soup for dinner this evening and I will have 5 half pints and 12 pints of taco soup to use for lunches or even future meal!  I am excited to have these convivence items instead of purchasing.

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  1. We have been extremely busy the last several weeks. We are in the process of converting the fabric metal pole structure that covered the beetle (Matt’s Volkswagen) to a  wooden structure covered in metal.  I knew it would be a process but did not think it would take over a month.  We really focused on getting it under roof.  Last Saturday we spent close to 8 hours solid on it and I made the decision that it was not a worth to try and continue at that pace to get it under roof. The current plan is to get a door on tomorrow. A tarp is currently over the roof and  it will likely be a month before we work on the roof.  My current plan is to start sharing pictures tomorrow.
  2. Zach’s truck broke down in the school parking lot on Monday. We had it towed home and then after some working and investigation, it appears that the fuel pump is part or all of the problem. The goal is to get that replaced tomorrow however the part was delayed so it may take a little bit on Sunday as well.
  3. Working has been a bit much. I am struggling to get in a routine. But I am hopeful that things will start to improve.
  4. Next week Braxton’s baseball starts which means that we have at least 3 evening of games.
  5. I am planning to do some big meal preparation over the weekend. The current plan is to make a double batch of taco soup with half or more canned for convivence. The second big preparation is meatball. The Costco meatball are all gone and we have lots of ground beef that can be used.

5 Things Friday

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1. The school year is in full swing and I am busy. One of the main reasons I am busy is the major overhaul project of rebuilding/making useable the metal building at the end of our driveway. We took down the entire structure which was a metal tube frame and are working on rebuilding.  I am hopefully that by this time next week, the project will be complete and I have been taking pictures to share at the end.
2. Zach’s JV football team is currently 2-0. Yesterday, his game was cancelled because of storms. Unfortunately, we had driven an hour, and sat in the parking lot an hour before it was cancelled.
3. Zach was able to get his driver’s license this week.  Our driveway is getting crowded. But it is nice to not have to drive someone everywhere every day. I am excited and looking forward to this new chapter/season of life.
4. I am happy to report that all my meal preparation over the summer is working.   We are also working hard to use up items before purchasing. I was able to reduce our grocery budget for August by $300 and plan to reduce more in $400.
5. We have planned Kendall’s graduation cruise. This is an item she has talked about for several years.  We will be cruising in April.  I hope it will be all she wants!

5 Things Friday

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1. I have been struggling with our chickens integration this week.  After spending around an hour each day watching the chickens, yesterday I left the chickens for a couple of hours. Today we are leaving the door open all day. So far so good, at least everyone is alive.
2. The weather continues to be very strange, we have had rain, rain and more rain. The temperatures have remained below average for about two weeks now.
3. I have completed my first two days of the school year. I am happy to report that I feel good and have been productive by completing continuing education!
4. My attempt at expanding our menu has failed 3 of the 4 new recipes that I tried this week are a no go. Zach has even asked that we return to normal food.
5. I am very hopeful that we will finish installing the pickets on the fence tomorrow, We actually started and got several sections completed one evening.

Thursday Thoughts- Every Bit Counts/ Pantry Challenge/Goals

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I talked a little bit on Monday about the changes/ goals I have for the next school year. My goal is to use up  the food that we have both in the freezers and pantry. At the same time, I want to reduce the amount of money we are spending on food as well. My goal in that area is to spend less than $475 a month on groceries. I would also like to put at least $300 a month toward meat purchases next summer.  The final piece of that is that we have to have meals that are easier to fix on some days just because of your busy lives.

After watching a video on You Tube, I decided to start a meal rotation to make menu planning a little bit easier for me. I tried to make a good list of all the items we have to use for meals. Looking at this list I am estimating that I have at least 100 full meals that can be made with the items we already have on hand.  This should be at least 3 full month of meals. So in December, I may need to purchase some additional meats for the remainder of the school year. At that point it should be very easy to purchase what we need as we continue to use up the food we already have on hand. The hard part of this challenge is that we like certain foods and we gravitate to those foods/meals. I am going to have to be very diligent on making a variety of foods using what we have.

Part of my planning was to try a new recipe for each day for the next two weeks.  On Monday I made BBQ short ribs. It was very good and it will definitely be something we do again.  Tuesday was a Beef Enchilada, not a repeat, just not.  Wednesday was chicken parmesan casserole, this one will be a repeat.

I have been canning ALOT this week.  I always want to fill up all the empty jars so that we have plenty of food in the winter and this summer I am successful. I also filled the extra 5 cases of jars that I purchased from Walmart.  I added 10 quarts and 2 pints of beef stock, 18 pints of pears and 6 quarter pints, 2 half pints and 8 pints of pearsauce to the canning closet.

Not  bad for four days!